Easy vegan carrot cake

Author:Craig

Prep Time:15 minutes

Cook Time:80 minutes

Total Time:1 hour 35 minutes

Yield:1 cake

Category:Baking

Description

This easy vegan carrot cake is perfect those when you’re feeding people with a bunch of different dietary needs. Naturally it’s vegan, and to make it gluten free just switch out the flour, nice and easy. I made mine as a loaf cake, but you could just as easily do it in layers for more of a showstopper.

Ingredients

for the cake:

3 flax eggs (3 tbsp flaxmeal, 8tbsp water)

80ml rapeseed oil (/coconut oil)

60ml maple syrup

200g grated carrot

75 raisins

200g plain flour

120g ground almonds

160g light brown sugar

200g applesauce (unsweetened)

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp bicarbonate soda

2 tsp ground cinnamon

200ml soya milk (unsweetened)

1 large pinch of salt

for the topping:

1 tin of coconut milk (full fat, left in the fridge overnight)

3 tbsp icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

The night before, pop your coconut milk in the fridge. Leave it there and don’t knock or tilt it – you’re looking for it to separate.

Preheat the oven to 170 C and line a 900ml/2lb loaf tin (I use liners, because it’s just much easier, and they’re compostable).

In a large bowl make the flax eggs – mix the flax meal (if you have seeds pop them in the blender for a few seconds) with about 8 tbsp of water, stir and leave to sit for a few minutes. Whilst the ‘eggs’ are resting, grate your carrots.

Once ready, add the oil and maple syrup to the bowl. Whisk together and then add in the baking powder bicarb, salt, cinnamon, sugar and applesauce. Mix together into a paste.

Add in the soya milk, then the carrots and finally the flour, mixing gently all the time. Add the raisins and gently fold them in. The batter should be thick, but pourable. If it’s too thick, add a little more soya milk.

Pour into your loaf tin and bake in the centre of the oven for 75-90 minutes, checking if a skewer comes out clean every ten minutes or so after 70 minutes.

Whilst the cake is baking, make your topping. Take the tin of coconut milk out of the fridge and carefully open it. If it’s worked, the liquid and cream will have separated. Scoop out the white cream into a cold bowl, add in the vanilla and icing sugar, beat together until smooth. Put back in the fridge until the cake is baked and cooled, then gently spread across the top of the loaf.

Notes

If something goes a little wrong with your can of coconut milk and it didn’t separate, try adding a couple teaspoons of cornflower or tapioca flour, this should thicken things up sufficiently without changing the taste too much.